Complementing Steelhead:
LINK: Knights of Columbus
Quote:
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Several decades later, in 1954, lobbying by the Order helped convince the U.S. Congress to add the phrase "under God" to the Pledge of Allegiance. President Dwight Eisenhower wrote to Supreme Knight Luke E. Hart thanking the Knights for their "part in the movement to have the words 'under God' added to our Pledge of Allegiance."[92] Similar lobbying convinced many state legislatures to adopt October 12 as Columbus Day and led to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's confirmation of Columbus Day as a federal holiday in 1937.
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Symbols are payed too much attention to, they are not the thing they should just point at, but many take them as the only point, centering their lives on it and wanting to make or even force others doing so, too. Religion is one such example, and that is why it was wise by the founding fathers to to keep it separate and not declare the state to be in duty towards any religion there is. That religious lobbies do not like this and tried - sometimes successfully - to change this, comes without saying.
I am with Steve. Having a mandatory pledge of allegiance, in my opinion belongs to the toolkit of totalitarian regimes with according cults. I cannot bring it into conformity with the highly valuable ideals of the founding era of America.
The bigger problem with the currency than just having some theistic magical formula on it, is that it is not a value-currency, not a "covered" currency, but is an uncovered paper token only. That has far greater problems than atheists like me having to touch banknotes with the word "God" on them.
Give us back
real money. If that would happen, some atheists may even feel tempted to start believing in the magical formula printed on it.
